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It's my first time ever venturing away from Windows so, needles to say, I don't know what I'm doing.
I am trying to install Mint 18.2 MATE x64 from a Flash Drive (mounted using Rufus) and I keep getting stuck at the Mint splash screen (pressing F8 reveals I keep getting the "unexpected irq trap at vector 07")
I have a Ryzen 1500x Cpu and a Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3.
My understanding is that the problem is the kernel version. From what I read, Mint 18.2 comes with kernel 4.8 and apparently my motherboard only likes kernel 4.10 and up, so I downloaded <linux-4.13.12.tar> from https://www.kernel.org
My question is, how do I add the file (if that is the right file) to the flash drive? (working from windows)

Update 9/15: Am able to boot Mint 18.1 x64 Cinnamon from USB flash. Haven't tried install yet, but at least no hang or IRQ Trap at vector 07. I see kernel 4.4.0-53 on this release. I'm assuming that Mint 18.0 would also work.

Update 9/23: I was able to install Mint 18.1 x64 Cinnamon. I then updated the kernel to 4.10.0-35 (latest 4.10 in Update Manager). I was then able to use the Update Manager to upgrade from 18.1 to 18.2 Sonya. After the update and reboot, I used the Update Manager to remove the 4.4.0-53 (optional working) and 4.8.0-53 (bad) kernels. I did not experiment with prior 4.10 kernels, nor I have I test 4.11 kernels. No problems to report, so far.

I don't know how I missed those links you posted. I ended up installing Mint 18.1 MATE and it worked like a charm. I am going to completely ignore the 18.2 update and the Kernel 4.10+ update. My theory is: If it works, don't mess with it.
Now I just have to wrap my head around this new OS. I have been using only windows for 20 years, so this should be fun.

Stiveh wrote:Now I just have to wrap my head around this new OS. I have been using only windows for 20 years, so this should be fun.

I don't know if your 20 years included Windows 8 and/or 10 (mine did not, my 20 or so years of Windows ended with 7), but in some ways moving from Windows 7 to Windows 8 or 10 is probably more difficult than going from 7 to versions of Linux such as Mint.